Halloween

Friend and I got drunk and watched the parade in the West Village. It was great. However, there was no place to pee. And I won't tell you what happened next.

Ceci n'est pas un Banksy

Someone blue-balled the Wall Street bull a little while back. He basically had to do it in front of a bunch of tourists, because there are always tourists swarming it during the daylight. Hence this hilarious photo, which friend took. It's funny, the artist says, how people just do not react to what is going on around them. Tourists especially, maybe.

The bull itself was kind of an act of vandalism. It was not commissioned by the city, and in fact the artist had no permission to install it. But when the city removed it, people protested. And when its balls were painted blue, the City couldn't take a joke, and quickly scrubbed them clean.

This is important

Babies, you know how your house is always dirty, and/or there is something in your house that should be fixed but is not being fixed? Babies, you also know how any attempts to work within the capitalist system are doomed to end up being ridiculous caricatures of economic justice, and yet as Camus points out the Marxian logic of deferring justice for the universal class until the end of history quickly degenerates into a callous and anti-humanist stance with respect to reform?

Well I have found the solution for you. Workers' collectives in Brooklyn! Workers' collectives are businesses owned by the workers themselves. All and only workers own the business. So everyone has a stake, everyone has a say, and everyone gets to reap full reward of their work.

My friend used their handyman service. So wonderful and helpful and inexpensive. I am calling the mujeres today about my disgusting radiators.

New York people, please pass this on...

Two stories about the UES

Okay, this first story is not mine, it's Dominguez's - we sometimes commiserate about the UES because he spends time there too. In a cakeshop, he overheard an obsessive woman purchasing a $150 cake for her child's third - mind you, third - birthday party, which she was planning, as it turns out, six months in advance. Why? Because last year she had made the mistake of only giving herself three months to plan and she "simply won't put little Dillinger through that again." Or Soren. Whatever.

The other morning, I was in line at a Starbucks... Let me preface this story with another story, about the one time I recognized a celebrity without being prompted. Her name was Marcia Kurtz, and I checked her in at the Calgary Airport. I knew it was her even before I looked at the name in her passport. I know, you've never heard of her, but she played Joel Steinberg's fucked up victim-accomplice wife, permanently disfigured from BDSM, in the Law & Order adaptation of that case. Well this woman in front of me in line at the Starbucks could have been her, IRL. She had painted a ring of orange lipstick around her mouth. She was carrying six or seven battered Duane Reade tote bags, full of her belongings and a lot of crumpled kleenex, but obviously wasn't homeless. She spoke both to herself, and to the man behind the counter, as though they were other people.

SMS Highlight Reel, vol. 19

Friend lives on the Upper West Side. He takes the train all the way down the island to the Staten Island Ferry terminal, to Staten Island, to a gypsy cab, to a prison, to teach philosophy to minimum security inmates. I live in waydowntown Manhattan. And as you know, I take a train up the entire length of the island, under the Harlem River to the very end of the Bronx, to a gypsy cab, to a community college, to teach philosophy to kids who sometimes miss class because "my friend was shot and killed outside of his house with baby in hand."

Here is our SMS exchange this morning:

Just another morning no the boat to prison...









Jesus christ! Help her out.

Docs just wheeled her away.

And then, the concord just floated by in front me the statue of liberty!









Have fun in the chocolate factory, charlie.

We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of dreams.

Double-decker Sightseeing Bus

There are double-decker sightseeing busses constantly circulating the city. A friend of mine has a friend who grew up in the Bronx and who currently tour-guides on one of these buses, what for the easy money while he figures out what he wants to do with his life. She and I joined him on his bus yesterday. We ate Nuts4Nuts and watched his schtick and yelled at him when he was about to get hit by a traffic light or a tree branch. We didn't learn much new about New York, except that 14th Street was the first street in the world to have street lights. We saw a giant new Banksy mural in Soho. We got stuck for 15 minutes behind a double-parked car on Spring Street; its fat, thuggish, club-going owner only emerging from the D&C store to move his Acura when the bus driver got impatient and decided to risk trying to squeeze past it. By then a crowd had gathered to get a look at what jackass was blocking traffic all the way to the Hudson. Everyone gave him a Bronx cheer. I threw my empty Nuts4Nuts bag at him.

Street meat

I got food poisoning on Tuesday, the same day that I went to the dentist, the same day that I taught two classes. Wah me. I still have the food poisoning (don't eat from the pizza truck in Union Square). This is the first time this has happened to me, even though I eat from the trucks all the time because they are so cheap! I mean because they are so good. Seriously, have you ever swayed outside of a truck for 15 minutes in the middle of the night waiting for your philly cheese steak to toast? Delish. So is chicken and rice, especially outside of the Hilton in midtown. So are hotdogs, I don't care what anybody says. If you walk one block west from Union Square to 14th and 5th they are $1 instead of $2. In fact, don't let anybody charge you $2 for a hotdog, that's ridiculous. Excuse me I will be in the bathroom for five minutes.

SMS Highlight Reel, vol. 18

Not sure yet, there still in jersy. come get shit faced later with us

brown rice and mrs. dash totatally rocks...

i just found a bukowski book in your recycling room.

I think i've figured out this blog thing. It has to be interesting; it makes your life a bit more interesting

pinot grigio or sauv blanc

I laughed, i cried, i burbed, i snored. It was three bucks. It was charming

How long can boiled eggs keep for, refrigerated?

We're on a rooftop with attractive women, free food and drink. So we're not sweating it either.

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Had dinner with Lisa from Top Chef last night.

o my god!! i just ran into my analyst at the gym!!

But Yasir, your late night drunk texts win:

You know... I miss you. And fuck you. But i wish i could say it. Cause its not at as bad as it sounds. U Are. Thanks. ;)

IKEA Brooklyn

This is my year of being a grown up, I guess. I have fifteen jobs and I bought a printer for home use and I order from Fresh Direct and I have a dentist and I even wear foundation. I'm so effing old that my idea of fun now, my idea of a date, my idea of a late night adventure if you will, is to board the 8 o'clock ferry on a Sunday after dark, and set sail across the East River to the IKEA in Red Hook; we push off and a sloop silently cuts past us, the Statue of Liberty emerges from the other side of the Battery, I and the rest of the passengers climb to the upper deck and take in the green salt air and the waterfalls and watch Manhattan retreat to an in-perspective view - all of that anxiety and arrogance taking place on a little island, after all. My date and I rendezvous for $1.99 meatballs and lingonberries and mashed potatoes (we are surrounded by working families wise to the frugality of the IKEA cafeteria; their kids wander off afterwards to watch cartoons on the couch in the living room section), and then we saunter through the showroom labyrinth. I emerge with a colander, some canisters, AAA batteries, and lightbulbs.

SMS Highlight Reel, vol. 17

so i left and got something to eat and submerged it in my new thing of hair gel...

Yes I am and yes you may because yes I am (and you know it).

I feel smarter, funnier, and better looking. You?

Bitch is your facebook quote Rilke?? And who the eff knew that without (or actually, prior to) googling?

and i just ate an egg mcmuffin and i am so excited to see you. egg mcmuffin may have been a mistake btw

east 43rd. kill me

1st place of the women, 11th overall!

denis rodman is in front of la bagel and im not kidding...

Your boyfriend kucinich is on democracy now.

God Damn it i just crashed into a woman who darted into the street.

So i was just in the staten island ferry terminal washroom, and there was a twenty something woman in there, at the sink, topless.

Soup nazi at union square

Some scattered tornado damage up here. Interesting. Some tilted buildings, uprooted trees, signs blown over, shingles and siding missing.

I have your ear plugs. By the way.

i am so fucking pissed. i just spent like an hour prepping this really nice dinner and before i could cook the fuse blew... its dark in here

Had toast with peanut butter and nutella. It was like reese's toast. Awesome.

by the way. i have a very strong feeling that everything will be alright

But mostly a distaste for fashion

When I came here, I left some people behind, I brought some along, I found new ones. New York puts all of your relationships through a blender. However, once you get over (or used to) the dizzying pace, the social escalationism, the scenes, you give your head a shake and remember that your friends and the ones that share your priorities:

humour
opinion
a sense of compassion
creativity
and a distaste for fashion.

So friend's article got published in the NYT this weekend. It then got picked up by Gawker and trashed. We celebrated at our neighbourhood pub with a game of sixes and a smuggled banana cream pie.